The following is a press release from R-CALF USA:
Billings, MT- Voting 64-35, the U.S. Senate on Thursday passed its version of the 2012 Farm Bill.
“They rushed to get it done, without any consideration for getting it done right,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard.
Bullard said the Senate cannot claim to have done its job, let alone claim to have done a good job, when its version of the 2012 Farm Bill ignored completely the single greatest threat to the single largest segment of American Agriculture.
“The cattle industry is the largest segment of American Agriculture and for the first time in history the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), throughout all of 2010, held joint workshops around the country to determine how public policy has impacted the U.S. cattle market and other agriculture markets and isolate the problem(s) affecting those markets.
The historic DOJ/USDA workshops attracted unprecedented numbers of U.S. farmers and ranchers, with literally thousands of livestock producers attending the Fort Collins, Colo., workshop on livestock competition alone. The workshops revealed that competition in U.S. livestock markets has eroded, and something needs to be done.
According to a report issued by the DOJ regarding those historic workshops, the DOJ committed to taking “all appropriate enforcement action” against such antitrust practices in agriculture markets as price fixing, collusion to reduce competition, and agreements to limit bidding competition or divide territories, all of which threaten to harm the competitive process.
“Importantly, the DOJ made it clear that it did not have statutory authority to address all the problems plaguing agriculture markets and it acknowledged that legislative, regulatory, and other initiatives were critical to promote “free and fair competition” in agriculture,” Bullard said.
Bullard said one of the critical legislative initiatives presumably considered in the DOJ report is the bill to ban packer ownership of livestock, which would prohibit packers from reducing competition by owning and feeding their own cattle. Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) properly filed an amendment to include the bill to ban packer ownership of livestock in the 2012 Farm Bill.
“But, the leadership in the Senate refused to even allow the packer-ban amendment to be debated on the floor, and rank and file Senators did not have the fortitude to stop the Farm Bill’s momentum to ensure it was done right,” Bullard commented.
A Senate Farm Bill that does not even address the current and most dangerous threat to the well-being of independent U.S. cattle producers and independent U.S. cattle feeders – the threat of eroding competition – is a disservice to U.S. agriculture producers,” Bullard said adding, “And that is precisely what this 2012 Senate Farm Bill is. It’s an absolute bust for independent livestock producers.”
# # #
R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America) is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle industry. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com or, call 406-252-2516.
Source: R-CALF USA
Posted by Haylie ShippCEO says they rushed and didn’t get it done right.
The following is a press release from R-CALF USA:
Billings, MT- Voting 64-35, the U.S. Senate on Thursday passed its version of the 2012 Farm Bill.
“They rushed to get it done, without any consideration for getting it done right,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard.
Bullard said the Senate cannot claim to have done its job, let alone claim to have done a good job, when its version of the 2012 Farm Bill ignored completely the single greatest threat to the single largest segment of American Agriculture.
“The cattle industry is the largest segment of American Agriculture and for the first time in history the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), throughout all of 2010, held joint workshops around the country to determine how public policy has impacted the U.S. cattle market and other agriculture markets and isolate the problem(s) affecting those markets.
The historic DOJ/USDA workshops attracted unprecedented numbers of U.S. farmers and ranchers, with literally thousands of livestock producers attending the Fort Collins, Colo., workshop on livestock competition alone. The workshops revealed that competition in U.S. livestock markets has eroded, and something needs to be done.
According to a report issued by the DOJ regarding those historic workshops, the DOJ committed to taking “all appropriate enforcement action” against such antitrust practices in agriculture markets as price fixing, collusion to reduce competition, and agreements to limit bidding competition or divide territories, all of which threaten to harm the competitive process.
“Importantly, the DOJ made it clear that it did not have statutory authority to address all the problems plaguing agriculture markets and it acknowledged that legislative, regulatory, and other initiatives were critical to promote “free and fair competition” in agriculture,” Bullard said.
Bullard said one of the critical legislative initiatives presumably considered in the DOJ report is the bill to ban packer ownership of livestock, which would prohibit packers from reducing competition by owning and feeding their own cattle. Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) properly filed an amendment to include the bill to ban packer ownership of livestock in the 2012 Farm Bill.
“But, the leadership in the Senate refused to even allow the packer-ban amendment to be debated on the floor, and rank and file Senators did not have the fortitude to stop the Farm Bill’s momentum to ensure it was done right,” Bullard commented.
A Senate Farm Bill that does not even address the current and most dangerous threat to the well-being of independent U.S. cattle producers and independent U.S. cattle feeders – the threat of eroding competition – is a disservice to U.S. agriculture producers,” Bullard said adding, “And that is precisely what this 2012 Senate Farm Bill is. It’s an absolute bust for independent livestock producers.”
# # #
R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America) is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle industry. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com or, call 406-252-2516.
Source: R-CALF USA
Posted by Haylie Shipp
